roomthily

On the Origins of Fanboy

To understand the origins of “fanboy,” you don’t need to go back to 1919…but you do need to start earlier than 1985. Try 1973–when a handful of copies of a fanzine were distributed at a Chicago comics convention. The zine was credited to two fans who took Marvel Comics, the work of Frank Frazetta, and other matters a wee bit too seriously, Alfred Judson and Bill Beasley. And its name was Fanboy.

[…]

Lynch got “fanboy” from an earlier put-down. “Funboy” was a relic of his Florida youth which popped up often in Bill Killeen’s Charlatan, a 1960s humor magazine with early work by Lynch and other soon-to-be leading lights of underground comics:Fan+funboy=fanboy. Lynch coined the word and drew the cover in 1972, although the fanzine wasn’t photocopied and distributed until 1973.

via Technologizer